Tuesday, October 17, 2006

New business: Heroes & HIMYM

Spoilers for, in order, "Heroes" and "How I Met Your Mother" just as soon as I place a call to Japan about those 300-inch TVs...

Well, after three weeks of moving the plot incrementally before unleashing a great cliffhanger, "Heroes" gives us an entire hour of story -- or, close to it, since Marian needed the defibrillator paddles to rouse me after the Peter and Simone scene. We get a closer look at Claire's dad and his eeeeevil sidekick, witness Niki's mirror personality in action for the first time, get a more concrete description of what Peter's ability is, and put more characters in rooms together (Nathan and Niki, Peter and Mohinder). The Peter/Mohinder two-in-one team-up was especially good, because Mohinder's skepticism lent a comic note to the show's mopiest character. All that, and a "Rain Man" homage (Ando and Hiro in their new suits on the escalator) and the appearance of a staff-wielding, soul patch-sporting, fluent English-speaking Future Hiro as an even better cliffhanger than Claire's autopsy last week.

(Speaking of which, other than The Love That Dare Not Be Interesting between Peter and Simone, the only misstep was the speedy resolution of the autopsy gag. Would have been cooler if the ME had already removed several organs and Claire had to stumble around, trying to remember biology lessons about where she should be putting everything.)

An hour earlier, "How I Met Your Mother" had maybe its best episode of the season so far, a funny interchange of two faux-couples, with Barney and Lily's mock marriage gradually turning into the real thing, while Marshall and his law school buddy inadvertently turned into each other's rebound. I like Ted and Robin, but I'm pleased that the writers feel comfortable enough at this stage that they can put them in the deep background of an entire episode.

What did everybody else think?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

So far, Nikki's power is...she has MPD and can go nuts? C'mon, that reflection's got to do something. (Besides do things in a mirror that don't match up with reality.)

Alan Sepinwall said...

Well, she tore one of the leg-breakers in half in the pilot, so Mirror-Niki (or, as someone on TWoP dubbed her, ikiN) is, at least, a super-strong case of MPD.

Joel said...

HIMYM was very, very good this week... What was the word Brad kept using? "ReDONKulous"?

BTW, I think I've given up on "The Class"... second unfunny ep in a row. Too many stories to let the humor come through, and the Kyle/Holly story makes me cringe every time it comes on screen. Not sure how it so quickly went from improving to god awful.

Anonymous said...

Seeing Niki's alter ego in action was cooler than I expected, and I agree with Alan -- she must have super-strength, at the very minimum. I'm all for girl power but no way can a normal woman Ali Larter's size beat up a professional thug like she did in the elevator. (Finally, a use for those high heels!) I wonder if normal Niki will eventually be able to use evil Niki's abilities?

I appreciated the quick autopsy resolution, but I'm a wuss -- a few minutes of open-chest Claire was quite enough for me.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Haven't seen The Class yet. The way the evening broke down, I was away from the TV between 8:30 and 9:30, so I went straight from HIMYM to the two NBC dramas.

Studio 60, by the way, finished in third place in the timeslot this week, even behind "What About Brian?" -- though the numbers might be slightly skewed since the Bears game aired on the Chicago ABC affiliate.

Matt said...

If the Heroes reruns deliver decent numbers on Sunday, I expect NBC will try a repeat of Heroes at 9 and a new Heroes at 10 at least once during sweeps (or, if they can get away with it, two new hours).

NBC has a serious flexibility problem built into its schedule--the number of slots which aren't either "death slots" (where they're wisely showing stuff like DOND and Biggest Loser) or locked down (Thursdays other than DOND, L&O:SVU, Football) are very limited.

Anonymous said...

I cracked up when Claire put herself together because that's pretty much what I thought she would do (including the boob adjustment). The only bummer was not knowing what the hell was happening to Officer Parkman. And your speculation about Peter's power was right, Alan. I still don't get why everyone's so down on Milo, though. He seems okay as an actor to me [shrug].

Anonymous said...

Due to the rain-out, I got to see THE CLASS for the first time, don't know if I've missed too much, but I can say I won't be back, just don't find adultery that funny-not to mention wasting Sara Gilbert like that.

Re: Heroes-best episode yet.

CM said...

I think the show keeps getting better, but I was also a little disappointed with the quick resolution of Claire -- I was hoping that her family would know she had died, and then they would all have to deal with the fact that she showed up again, and her Evil Dad would have confirmation of her powers. It seemed a little too convenient that nobody knew what had happened, and even Rapist Guy only seemed freaked out for a minute when he saw her again.

Heather K said...

Yeah! Why wasn't rapist guy more freaked out?

Anonymous said...

So did rapist guy become a necrophiliac since she was found naked?

When I found out what Claire's revenge was, I realized this show's awesomeness.

"Heroes" is hands down the best thing on TV this year.

Alan Sepinwall said...

I think he took her clothes off to prevent her from being identified quickly, give himself some time to concoct an alibi.

Anonymous said...

Watching it again, the rapist does say she was a slut who was asking for it, so my assumption is, he nailed her while she was dead, thinking she was only unconscious, confirmed by the next day him not overly freaking out when he sees her alive.

Anonymous said...

I didn't like the QB's about face either. One second he's freaking out when he sees Claire, a few hours later he's pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, saying he'll just spread rumors that she's a slut. Mohinder also seemed to go from "I must continue my father's work" in the previous episodes to "Screw these weirdos, I'm going back to my life in India" with little transition.

These minor complaints were more than offset by 15 seconds of dancin' Evil Niki, though. Me likey...